Education or Indoctrination?

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Elson Boles, sociology professor at SVSU feels that forcing his students to read his propaganda and opinions is the way to teach.  He has his students read papers that reflect his extremist views for exams and for extra credit.  This page shows what students have to study in Sociology 111.  In order to even get assignments off of his web page, a student has to wade through all sorts of propaganda.  His website is located at www.svsu.edu/~boles (Note, Boles has now closed down his website for reasons unknown. The pages can be viewed from Google Cache, isn't Google great?).  Within this website, many papers and "studies" rely on Marxist principles and views.  He cites Fidel Castro as a source for his economic information along with articles from the Worker's World.  The Worker's World is an off shoot from the Socialist Workers Party.

To add to supporting material, Elson Boles penned an article that was published last October in CounterPunch newsletter titled "Helping Iraq Kill with Chemical Weapons".  This article has been profiled as a "piece of intellectual dishonesty".  Jurjen Smies has an in-depth review of Boles' article here.  After taking a deeper look, one finds that Elson misrepresented sources he used, used partial quotes to distort what was said, and claims people held offices that they never held.  (Example, he states that Donald Rumsfeld is Secretary of State.  Rumsfeld has never held that office.)  The following sentiment describes the feelings of many:  "Elson E. Boles' article is shoddily written, even more shoddily researched, and blatantly pursues an agenda with little regard for facts or the standards of scientific practice as concerns research. He obfuscates, distorts and misrepresents facts at almost every turn, provided he can be bothered to get them straight in the first place.  The fact that Boles has the audacity to list this piece of intellectual dishonesty as a publication on his curriculum vitae serves to indicate that if one plans to study sociology, one is well-advised to avoid Saginaw Valley State University."

Along with his website and article, Elson Boles has a display within the halls of SVSU.  On this display, he refers to our Servicemen and women as henchmen for the oil industry.  He shows graphic pictures of injured Palestinians with captions that say "America has bombed us".  Other anti-Semitic views are also displayed.  Update: The Israel/Palestine material has been removed from the display.

Boles proclaims on one of his pages that "It's time to open up the social sciences and universities for greater academic freedom and real social change!"  If the social change is to spread vile, hateful speech that is based on opinion, communist principles, and not on facts, do we really want or need this change?

The following comments were made by Elson Boles in regards to this site.  His comments are in black and are unedited (we even left the spelling errors), our synopsis in red.  Click here to read the full email.

"Elson Boles, sociology professor at SVSU feels that forcing his students to read his propaganda and opinions is the way to teach."

Elson is correct in stating that students do not have to take his classes.  However, those that do are subjected to material that support his own views.  The material that he refers to as "fact" and from mainstream sources are simply editorial pieces.  Many of which rely on unknown or unverifiable sources.

- This is most inaccurate.  *I* didn't refer to US military as henchmen or as anything.  I only posted information from mainstream news sources which cite US military officiers and government officials who explained their and the US government role in helping Iraq gas Iranians.  Perhaps you should take another look.